The 5 Most Underwhelming Wearables Of CES

Attendees look at wearables near the FitBit booth on the first day of the CES 2016. (Photo credit ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

CES was underwhelming. The New York Timessaid this year's tech is in those awkward teenage years where "The best new stuff is not all that cool, and the coolest stuff isn’t quite ready.”

And it seemed like wearables were particularly underwhelming when another year passes and we're seeing many iterations of the same fitness tracker with little meaningful change. So, in attempts to save you time when deciding which expensive investment you should make, here's what might not be worth it.

1. Samsung’s Generic Smart Wear

The Sol Bag solar power charger and handbag is on display at the Samsung booth during CES. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Samsung released a line of items from its Human Fit line which included a smart suit and a unfortunate-looking, solar-paneled purse. It's 2016 and we still don’t give women accessories the style they want or deserve. Instead of considering a redesign or taking note from Kate Spade’s Everpurse, it seems the company is trying to pass this solar-paneled purse off as avant-garde. I hate looking at solar panels on a house, so I'm not really sure what would have possessed them to think we would want to carry them with us everywhere we go. Samsung also revealed a smart men’s suit equipped with NFC tags. Supposedly, when held against a lapel, it turns phone on silent before walking into a meeting and when swiped, can digitally send business card information. You know, business-y stuff. Oh, and it has to be hand-washed.

2. The FitBit Blaze

Television sports analyst and former NFL player Tony Gonzalez talks about the new FitBit Blaze at a press conference on CES Press Day. (DAVID MCNEW/AFP/Getty Images)

In a strange attempt to make life easier with a single watch, it somehow managed to do the opposite. The Blaze, which is categorized as a "fitness watch" (not a smart watch) can send you notifications from your phone and track your activity, but it doesn’t run third-party apps. It’s not a smartwatch, but its hardware was completely redesigned from its fitness band model into a smart watch look-alike. It tracks more than a dozen different activities and records heart rate, but lacks the GPS of the full-featured watch. It also seems to have forgone the square versus circular watch face and opted for an awkward octagon-shaped face. But they had a former football player demo it so it's cool, right?

3. Under Armour’s 400-dollar Fit Kit.

At CES, IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty, and Kevin Plank, Founder and CEO, Under Armour, announced a new "cognitive coaching" system, powered by Watson.

Hoping to make a big splash of an announcement, Under Armour release Healthbox—a collaboration with HTC which contains a pretty generic fitness tracker and a chest strap that monitors heart rate. What supposedly sets it apart is its detailed workout routines, health insights and dietary information but the bundle will cost you a steep $400. The "cognitive coaching" powered by IBM Watson doesn't give us much to go off yet but could be potentially cool down the line. Still, though health nuts may beg to differ—I don’t see this as revolutionary or unique for athletes or worth the cost.

4. The 150-dollar Smart Sports Bra

Because sports bras are too dumb, OMSignal came out with the OMbra which is a digitally connected bra we've seen before. Don't get me wrong, this looks like one of the more comfortable smart bras. Made of a stretchable fabric made of a blend of polyester, nylon, and elastane, it supposedly conforms to the body’s shape and connects to a smartphone app that claims to track distance, cadence, pace and calories. But this smart sports bra will cost $150 so that’s only $120 more than your average sports bra.

5. The Belt You Never Knew You Needed (Because You Don’t)

Photo from wearbelty.com

Ever dream of a creepy waist vibration telling you to drink more water and to sit up? Well, meet Belty. The company claims the belt will help improve “little things that change everything.” When walking, it can buzz you a reminder to increase your pace, when climbing stairs it can make you “climb more dynamically” and berate you to drink more water and fix your posture. It has a companion app, of course, but the belt itself doesn’t even self-adjust. It’s hand-stitched leather design isn’t ugly but it is $395.

A Silicon Valley native, I have been writing about the intersection of technology and culture as a freelance journalist for three years. My reporting has appeared in places like Silicon Valley Business Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, and Fast Company. Before tech journalis...